Author's Note: This one was interesting to write. I enjoy this story so much and I sincerely hope you guys do too.
Dan
'CASS!' dragon-me and dragon-Phil shouted in unison as the girl's shriek echoed through the air, bursting out of the building we were in—which I had finally figured out was an apartment building that looked remarkably like the one Phil and I lived in back in our world. Phil and I rushed out after them. Now I don't really like running, but the dragon and two Americans weren't very far away so it wasn't too bad.
Cass was in a heap on the ground, fingers clawing at her back where the cool-looking dragon scar was. Dragon-Phil reached her first and pried her fingers away as dragon-Dan examined the scar and tried to soothe her. The tissue was glowing like fire against her paling skin. Normal-Phil looked stunned as we skidded to a halt behind them. He looked up at Eldrid. 'What did you do to her?' he demanded, sounding both confused and hurt.
'I haven't done anything,' the huge American dragon replied, shaking his head. Monty was standing a few feet away, looking completely shell-shocked.
'What do we do?' I asked no one in particular as Cass clenched her hands into fists in the fabric of her shirt. Dragon-Phil brushed her massive mane of hair out of the way and deposited most of the over two feet of it on dragon-Dan's lap. He carefully placed his fingers on the glowing scar tissue that cast shadows up his face.
Cass grunted in pain so I'm guessing it didn't really help.
'Water. Put water on it,' normal-Phil suggested. Monty nodded and ran off to the apartment building. I didn't know it very well, but I was pretty sure I knew it better than she did, so I followed her. She ignored me completely as we both searched. I went down into the bunker while she remained in the main structure. I looked through wall panel cupboards and between all the air mattresses. And I decided that when I got back to my own world I was going to look for a secret bunker under our building because this was actually pretty cool.
Finally I found a bottle of water that was remarkably cold hiding in the darkest corner of the room and bolted back up the stairs. Panting, I rushed out the door and gave it to the dragon-world-version of me. He gave me a quick nod of thanks before pulling a cloth out of his pocket and soaking it with the water.
He was wringing it out over her old wound as Monty came back out. As soon as the excess water was dripping into her shirt, he pressed the cloth to the scar.
Steam started to rise from her skin. 'What is happening to her?' I whispered.
Monty shook her head sadly. 'It's the power of a Russian Spark,' she replied. 'They can make any injury inflicted by a dragon burn. I've heard stories of something like this killing someone when they had a burn that covered their entire body.'
'She'll be okay, though, right?' Phil asked.
Eldrid nodded his massive scaly head and sent his wings fluttering. 'She's strong enough to withstand it,' he answered. 'The injury I gave to her is as small as it is for a purpose. I figured that one day she'd be facing a Spark and I couldn't deal her any more pain than I had already caused. But part of the dragon society says we should "leave our mark" on a human if we hatched at the same time they were born and bonded with them. So that is exactly what I did. A mark to say I'd always be there for her.' I couldn't tell if that was slightly weird… or strangely kind of cute.
'So how does a Russian dragon end up in London?' I inquired, looking around at the assorted group.
'Well, dragons aren't bound by human borders,' Monty started. 'They can go anywhere in the world. Humans based their names on where they saw them the most. Sparks are mostly found in Russia, but there is a certain breed of Frost Dragon that hardly ever leaves Siberia. Creatively named the Siberian Frost Dragon.' I had already associated American sarcasm with Cass, so hearing Monty use it was a bit bizarre. 'Eldrid is called the American Fire dragon because most of his particular red-white-and-blue breed lives in America. Though there have been sightings in Australia and India and whatnot.' She paused for a moment. 'Of course, in some places, there is only one dragon of its kind and it reproduces like a phoenix would if they actually existed.'
'Like…?' I prompted.
'In Wales, there is one called the Welsh Red. And England has one called the English White.'
'Like the ones from the Arthurian Legend,' Phil said, realization dawning on his face.
Monty bit her lip. 'Yeah. That was our world's fault. The ancient Red and White slipped through a portal while the cannon's handler wasn't looking. Nearly killed half of Albion,' she admitted. 'According to our legends, it took three hundred people to lure them back into our world.'
'How much time do you people spend in our reality?' I asked.
'Well, since we have access to it, quite a lot. We love your culture. I'm sure Cass mentioned that she once spent a whole summer in your dimension. She only came back here to sleep.'
'So, Cass said that a Russian Spark is leading the attacks, but she also said the first dragon came down from Scotland,' Phil remarked. He'd turned his attention from Monty—who probably didn't know much about how the war on Britain's side started—to dragon-Phil and dragon-me. Dragon-Phil scratched the back of his head.
'True. Scottish dragons are a lot like Scottish people. Fiery and feisty,' he replied.
'So basically Cass in a nutshell,' dragon-me added.
The assembled group minus Cass all snickered at that. She was a little too busy putting more water on her smoldering scar and wincing as steam hissed and rose from her skin.
'But the first dragon that came down from Scotland was the Russian Spark. Closely followed by a weyr of Scottish dragons,' dragon-Phil finished. He caught something he'd said and put his hand up. 'A weyr is what a group of dragons is called. Like a murder of ravens or a parliament of owls. Sometimes they're also called a flight or a rage.'
'… Right,' I remarked.
'Have you guys forgotten that I'm here—in all of your discussing of dragon-lore?' Cass demanded irritably.
'Way to ruin a good exposition,' dragon-me retorted.
'This isn't a book, Dan,' Cass snapped. 'This is real.'
'Now kiss!' Monty exclaimed.
End Note: Oooooooooooooh! Is that ever gonna happen? I literally wrote that last line because it's exactly what my best friend Monty would say. And when she read it, she looked at me and said, "That's totally what I was thinking!" (Actually it was several weeks ago so I don't remember the precise words, but it was something to that effect.
Thanks for reading!
~Cass
